Substance Abuse
by Epeolatry
Summary: Tony Stark's battle with alcoholism is well documented, but at one time or another all of the Avengers have turned to substance abuse to deal with the chaos of their lives as 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' and their own feelings of loneliness. One chapter per character, themes of alcohol/drug use.
1. Tony Stark

Tony tried to pour himself another glass of scotch, but he was distracted by the way the white walls of his lab seemed to be bending inwards, and so he spilled most of it on the workbench. He watched disinterestedly as the new wiring that he had been working on for the suit sparked and smoked on contact with the potent liquid. He was swaying, and his wheeled chair didn't help as he tried to move one way and ended up whizzing off in the other direction. Finally, with one hand clenched on the worktop to hold himself steady, Tony succeeded in filling his glass with more amber intoxication.

"JARVIS?" he slurred, lifting the glass to his lips.

"Your blood alcohol level is currently 0.18%, Sir."

"Great."

Tony sometimes liked to pretend that his drinking binges were done in the name of science, and he had programmed JARVIS to compile stats as he descended further and further into his own personal liquid hell, each time trying to achieve a higher blood alcohol level and each time knowingly pushing his body – and his damaged heart – further and further towards its final limit. It was a game to him, a competition; everything was a competition to Tony Stark, it always had been. Who could win first prize at the school science fair? Who could be the youngest ever graduate of MIT? Who could turn Stark Industries into the most profitable industrial enterprise in the western world? Who could claim to have single-handedly privatised world peace? Tony Stark could. Who could sleep with the most people? Who could destroy the most relationships? Who could suffer from the most crippling self-loathing? Who could destroy themselves in the grandest, most degenerate, and most public manner? Tony Stark could, for he was a natural born winner. Tony Stark, who now did away with his empty glass altogether and began swigging straight from the bottle.

"Sir," chimed in JARVIS, as Tony toyed with the now destroyed wiring that he had spent all day carefully soldering together, "It is now three o'clock in the morning and the toxicity levels in your bloodstream are dangerously high. Might I suggest that now would be a good time to retire?"

"Good idea," agreed Tony huskily, "JARVIS, sleep mode."

"Very good, Sir," the AI responded as sniffily as possible, and then went quiet.

"Know-it-all," Tony muttered sullenly, taking another gulp from the bottle and hardly feeling the burn in his throat as the liquid scorched his insides. He stood unsteadily and staggered over to another desk to pull the live security feeds that covered Stark Tower. He knew very well that all would be still and silent, for the only other Avenger currently in residence was Bruce, and Tony saw at a glance that his room was dark and quiet. Tony half wanted to go and wake the other scientist, but Bruce was one of the very few people in the world for whom Tony felt any actual compassion, and even in his hopelessly drunken state he was able to remind himself of the dark circles under the good doctor's eyes, his greying hair, his frown-creased forehead...Their marathon lab sessions had lately been taking a heavy toll on Bruce, and Tony was able to convince himself that his nightly drowning pool of self-loathing was not worth adding to the poor man's list of worries.

Tony sat down heavily and leant back in his chair, which rolled a few paces away from the desk. The now empty bottle fell from his numb fingers with a heavy clunk and rolled beneath one of the many workbenches, where it clinked off one of its previously discarded brothers.

"I must be the only person in the whole world still awake," Tony mumbled as his eyelids drooped under the weight of the liquid depressant, "The only… stupid… not sleeping…"

His head slumped backwards and finally Tony Stark fell into a deep, dreamless unconsciousness from which he would eventually awake with a dry mouth, a throbbing headache, and very little memory of the previous night.


	2. Doctor Bruce Banner

Bruce enjoyed the quietude that the higher storeys of Stark Tower provided. He also liked the dark and the solitude of early morning, when he could order his thoughts and relax his mind. He was sitting on his private balcony, his bedroom dark behind him with the curtains drawn and a pile of clean laundry on the bed that gave the illusion of a sleeping body.

He let the wind ruffle his hair, streaks of grey standing out sharply in the moonlight as he took another deep drag on his half-finished joint. The ashtray at his elbow already held the remains of one stubbed out roach and Bruce was beginning to feel pretty darn relaxed.

He hadn't smoked marijuana regularly since his college years and he had tried to avoid resorting to drug dependence throughout his long search for ways of neutralising 'the Other Guy'. However, with the added stresses of becoming a reluctant Avenger and moving permanently into Stark Tower, Bruce had found that meditation alone wasn't a quick enough fix, so he had turned to the softest and least addictive pharmaceutical option that he could think of.

He watched the smoke drifting upwards through the cool night air, borne upon the breeze towards the very stars, or so it seemed to his intoxicated mind. His thoughts wandered as they always did when he smoked heavily, twisting and drifting like the wisps of smoke that so fascinated him. He thought of India, where he had managed to hide so successfully (or so he thought) for so long; recalling vividly the sights, the smells, the people… It was so far divorced from the first world metropolis at his feet now, bright with streetlights and loud with traffic even at three in the morning.

Bruce shook his head ruefully as he took another deep drag. In all honesty, New York City was the worst possible place for him to be and he had to put in twice as much effort to calm the rage within him as the Hulk howled with destructive glee at the near constant traffic accidents and screaming sirens. He could feel the primeval rage bubbling restlessly just beneath the surface in every waking moment, waiting for him to lose his cool for just a fraction of a second too long, just long enough for the Other Guy to take hold and reduce the city to wreckage, as he had so nearly been allowed to do in their most recent battle.

These thoughts aside, Bruce was thankful for the sanctuary of Stark Tower with its quiet, cool labs and pervasive technology that he could immerse himself in for hours at a time… He smiled dopily as he remembered earlier that day when he and Tony had sat down with Steve and tried to teach him the rudiments of using a smart phone. Steve had volunteered for the lesson, immediately seeing the usefulness of instant communication in case of an emergency, but Tony had quickly lost patience with the soldier's lack of familiarity even with common phrases such as "wi-fi" and "app". Bruce had been more patient, and had eventually managed to get the Captain making simple phone calls at least – text messaging could wait for another day.

Bruce contemplated that he sometimes felt like Steve must; an outsider, unused to and unable to cope with the millions of harsh stimulations offered by a buzzing twenty-first century city like New York. Everyone that Steve knew was dead; everyone that Bruce knew was at constant risk of death. They had both been quiet, unremarkable men until an accident of science had imbued them with remarkable attributes…

Bruce inhaled deeply once more, running through his similarities to the Captain in his mind while his pale scholar's fingers idly twirled the remaining stump of the joint.

He felt badly about how mercilessly Steve was sometimes teased by the others, and he had tried to take Tony aside and dissuade him from it a number of times, but to Tony Stark dissuasion was synonymous with invitation, and so the teasing continued. Bruce wondered what the Captain was doing right now – he was probably tucked up in bed in the downtown apartment that he rented, dreaming of better times and sensibly getting plenty of rest for whatever the next day might bring. Bruce smiled again as he stubbed out the joint, unable now to feel his own fingers – Steve Rogers certainly wasn't getting high all alone, that was for sure. Captain America was too squeaky clean, and Bruce suspected that if he ever found out about the doctor's illegal smoking habit then he would be in for a lecture…


	3. Captain Steve Rogers

Steve was sitting all alone in his bedsit apartment, the tiny room illuminated by only one dim bulb. Out of pride, he had refused the blanket invitation for all of the Avengers to take up residence in Stark Tower, and had only grudgingly allowed SHIELD to pay his rent for him – accordingly he had signed a lease for the cheapest studio flat he had been able to find at such short notice. Of course he still visited the Tower frequently for meetings and training, in fact he'd been there only this morning when Tony had managed to dig out Captain America's 'schematics' as he called them from among his father's old notes. Steve tried to feign indifference as Tony frowned over the diagrams and equations that equalled Captain America's very existence, as Bruce looked on with interest.

"You realise that you're practically immortal, Cap? Doctor _'s made a note here saying 'indefinable life span – impervious to all known toxins and poisons'."

"Yeah, that was mentioned to me. I can't even get drunk."

Tony whistled lowly, "That sucks. You sure there's no loophole? Give me a minute with these stats, I'll see if I can figure out exactly how well you can hold your liquor."

Tony frowned for a few moments, his lips moving soundlessly as he recited endless numbers, making additions and multiplications in his head faster than Steve could read the equations on the page. Eventually the Captain hazarded, "So… How much alcohol do you think I would have to consume to get drunk?'

"You really looking to take up drinking?" Tony quipped without looking up from the papers.

"N-no," Steve blushed, "I'm just curious…"

"Well according to this, my estimate would be roughly two metric fuck-tonnes."

Steve looked nonplussed.

"It was a joke Capsicle. You literally _can't_ get drunk. You physically cannot ingest alcohol at a faster pace than your super-metabolism processes it at. Typical of dear old dad really; the bastard drinks himself half to death then makes sure his Rocky can't enjoy the same fate."

Steve didn't understand the reference but remained silent. He had spent a lot of time watching Tony and the others drown their own problems with alcohol and had been at once repulsed and fascinated; he often felt like he could use an escape like that, but thus far all of his attempts at getting drunk had been to no avail. Tony and Bruce missed his look of disconsolation as they buried their heads in his old medical records, and Steve had left the Tower without saying anything further to anyone else.

Back in his lonely apartment he glanced at his watch – still working after more than sixty years on ice – and saw with some surprise that it read 0300 hours precisely. He didn't think that he would ever get used to this new twenty-four hour world, where traffic still roared and honked outside his dingy window at this time of morning. Still, he supposed, if he had gone to bed at his usual, reasonable time then he would probably be sleeping through the noise right now. But _reasonable_ Steve was AWOL tonight, owing to a conversation overheard in Stark Tower earlier that day, before the discovery of his 'schematics', but just after he had mastered dialling phone numbers on a smart phone;

"Do you really think Steve's ever going to learn how to fit in to the 2000s?"

"I don't know, it's a pretty big culture clash, the guy is probably always going to feel a little displaced."

Only Natasha had stood up for him in his perceived absence, saying curtly, "He will learn to fit in. Give him time."

Grimacing, Steve poured a measure of clear liquid into a glass and swallowed it, his face contorting as he did so at the trail of fire that it left down his throat; _reasonable_ Steve was out, but _reckless_ Steve was still here, and _reckless_ Steve wanted one last shot at getting drunk, regardless of physiological impediments. He once again hefted the industrial-looking bottle and poured more liquid into his glass, his vision beginning to slide ever so slightly as a warm red flush rose in his cheeks – he intended to get drunk tonight, even if it meant downing the entire bottle of methanol that _reckless_ Steve had quietly stolen from the Stark Tower labs to fuel his own experiment.

Three more glasses of the toxic drink followed in quick succession, and suddenly Steve felt very ill. He rushed to the bathroom and threw up violently, liquid splashing out of his mouth and burning twice as badly on the way up as it had on the way down. He gagged and spluttered, still retching even after the contents of his stomach was emptied and he was coughing up only bile; it appeared that if his super metabolism couldn't process a poison it was programmed to eject it as quickly as possible.

He slumped on the bathroom floor, the tiles cold through the thin material of his sweatpants, as he waited for his body to stop shaking and contemplated his inescapable loneliness… Not even drink could offer him any comfort in these early morning hours of darkness, when the city somehow still throbbed with life… A city he had never seen in his own time and which he certainly couldn't understand in this new and confusing time.

He screwed up his face, trying to control the rush of emotion that was welling up inside his broad chest, but he could not stop two fat tears from spilling down his cheeks as he heard the echo of Natasha's thoroughly Americanised voice - _"He will learn to fit in. Give him time."_

What did she know? In his time a Russian spy – even a female one – would have been executed without trial, and now she was the only person in his small circle of 'friends' who stood up for him. He covered his face with his hands, trying to calm his erratic breathing and stem the flow of silent tears that threatened to cascade across his vision at any moment.

_Natasha, the Russian spy_. But the more he thought about what she had said the more he realised that perhaps she did understand some of what he was going through. After all, she was the only other full-time Avenger to have been born into a different culture, a different world… Surely Cold War era Russia was just as dissimilar from their modern day circumstances as 1940s Brooklyn had been? She had escaped the martinetism of her native country, overcome a severe language barrier, and built herself a new life and career (albeit one of crime) in a brave new world. Surely Steve could, in time, do the same?

He had stopped crying, but he felt suddenly exhausted as he leant his head back against the tiled wall and his hands drooped in his lap. He wondered vaguely where Natasha might be at that moment – he knew that she had been due to leave on a mission that evening, but no more particulars than that. He imagined her infiltrating some society ball, looking dazzling in a bejewelled evening gown and charming dance partner after dance partner, each man discarded as soon as she got the information she wanted… He knew for certain that she wouldn't be huddled all alone on a bathroom floor, surrounded by the smell of her own vomit and feeling the bitter burn of alcohol in her throat.

"I must be the loneliest guy in this whole damn city," he muttered brokenly, closing his itching eyes in despair.


	4. Agent Natasha Romanoff

"Another," Natasha commanded the barman, who raised an eyebrow. She swiftly recited the English alphabet backwards – "Z, Y, X, W…" – to prove her sobriety, then reiterated her demand, "_Another_."

The bemused barman poured another shot of vodka for the red headed woman who was here all alone and who apparently could hold her liquor better than any of his regular customers.

She knocked back the drink with ease – her fourth in as many minutes – and pointed to the glass to indicate her desire for more. By the time she had downed her sixth shot of vodka in under ten minutes the barman decided to try to distract her with conversation.

"Man troubles?"

She looked at him with murder in her eyes and whispered so that only he could hear, "If you speak to me again _you_ will be the man with the most troubles in the world."

He took the hint and hurriedly moved up the crowded bar to serve some friendlier punters.

Natasha smiled grimly to herself, the show of mirth not reaching her eyes which remained dark and cold.

_Man troubles._

How pathetic. The world's premier assassin, _The Black Widow_, the deadliest woman ever born, who had killed more men than she had bothered to keep a tally of, suffering from _man troubles_.

Stealthy as usual, silent and unnoticeable like her namesake, Tasha slid an almost full bottle of vodka from behind the bar and retreated with it to a dark corner booth. There she could remain hidden from view yet still keep an eye on her mark, a boozy old man with his hand in a number of multi-nationals, and who was in the habit of frequenting this particular bar until closing every night.

She drank deeply from the bottle, not merely sipping but throwing back the harsh liquid like it was water. She was more than used to ignoring the sear of the drink, waiting instead for the familiar spreading warmth that it brought to her limbs, the only warmth that was offered to an orphan child on the streets of Stalingrad as the icy teeth of winter closed in… Of course she had suffered a tough and lonely childhood, but what did that matter? It had been good training for her adult life as a lone assassin. She preferred to live alone, to work alone; she was safest unhindered and unattached. Only one person truly understood this about her, one man who could share her mercenary life but who could also melt away when she needed him to. Clint shared so much with her – the lonely childhood of an orphan, the intensive training, the life of crime, the seeking of redemption…

She shook her head angrily at the direction in which her mind was wandering. Taking another huge gulp of burning vodka as if in penance for her weakness, she mentally lectured herself yet again about her "feelings" for Agent Barton; they were a liability, a compromise, a danger to both of their lives. He was only a colleague, someone whose skills she admired, who she could work alongside of with ease, someone to whom she owed a debt and nothing more.

She cursed quietly in her native language, putting the bottle to her lips again and drinking deeply as she realised that Barton was compromising her even now by occupying her thoughts when she was supposed to be working. She kept her eyes on the mark, who was slurring and staggering after only four beers, while she coolly nursed a vodka bottle that was now only one quarter full.

A few moments later she stood with only the slightest unsteadiness and followed the mark's bodyguard across the busy bar floor and into the men's toilets. He turned at the click of her heels on the tiled floor, then slumped to the ground wide-eyed, his neck cleanly broken.

Tasha returned from the toilets calmly and retook her position at the booth, a faint flush in her cheeks from the alcohol in her bloodstream and the exertion of breaking a full grown man's neck; she preferred bullets for quick kills, but obviously the report of a gun in a crowded bar would have drawn unnecessary attention.

She remained waiting, watching for another long hour, her drunken mark not missing his lackey at all. She marvelled at how alone, how separate, she could feel even in a place like this which hummed with activity. Yet again she found herself thinking of Clint, and tipsy as she was she couldn't be bothered to drive him from her mind with any real determination. She wondered where he was, what he was doing… He was probably asleep she guessed, as she glanced at the wall clock which read three o'clock in the morning.

"Last call," came the voice of the barman, and Tasha spurred herself into action. She stood and feigned drunken vulnerability, giggling and blushing as she purposely bumped into the mark. Flattered by the attention of a beautiful young woman and already drunk beyond reason he happily left the bar with her; she despatched him in the car park behind the building, not bothering to hide the body.

Once she was safely locked in her own car she withdrew from the glove compartment a hipflask of vodka, took a swig, and then gunned the accelerator, speeding off towards the bright lights of New York City while murmuring sternly to herself, "Lone assassins do _not_ feel loneliness."


	5. Agent Clint Barton

Clint was perched on a rooftop high above the city, wondering idly at how many lights were still lit, how many cars still moving, how many people still going about their business at this ungodly hour that was neither morning nor night.

As was his habit he had tailed Natasha when she left for her mission in the slanting sunlight of late afternoon, and as usual he had lost her; he'd managed to track her as far as the intersection below however, and had taken up his vantage point to wait for her return.

He had a case of beer and a bottle of bourbon beside him, four beers and half of the spirit already missing; the empty bottles he had thrown onto an adjacent rooftop, satisfied when he heard each shatter in turn.

The Hawk had never been a big socialite, but ever since the brain washing that Loki had forced upon him he had withdrawn further into himself. The only person who could come close to understanding what that did to a person was Natasha, and now that she was gone he would have to make do with alcohol.

He picked up another bottle from the case, popped the lid off with the flick of an arrow head and downed half of it in one go, belching loudly as he finished. The old timey clock tower in the square below him chimed thrice; three o'clock in the morning. He slept rarely these days and was unsurprised by the lateness of the hour. Little as he liked to admit it, he was still plagued by nightmares of what had been done to him, and of what he himself had almost done…

He shook his head, trying to shake the thoughts right out of his mind, as he continued to keep a close eye on each car that passed below him. He knew that they had won the battle, he knew that Thor and the other Asgardians wanted earth left well alone from now on, but he couldn't help thinking… Otherworldly beings with otherworldly powers could surely pose a threat again. Loki had certainly not seemed finished when he had been escorted back to his home realm by his morose brother, and he had been wondering lately - could Thor really be trusted?

Clint had been jumpy around the blonde god ever since recovering from his brother's spell; after all, what did they really know about him, about his powers, about what he was capable of? Sure, he seemed like a genuine (if somewhat dim) guy, but Loki had worn a helmet that made him look like Rudolph, so what difference did outward appearance make?

Clint had tried hard over the last few weeks not to think these dark, suspicious thoughts, and he had hoped that alcohol might purge him of them, but (taking a swig of bourbon and chasing it with more beer) he now allowed himself instead to wallow in his suspicions, his feelings of violation, his loneliness… He wondered where Thor and Loki were now, what were they doing? Were they on earth or in Asgard? Was their supposed godly ally even now plotting with his despicable brother? Clint imagined Thor whispering with Loki through the bars of some otherworldly prison cell, or asleep in his royal bed, dreaming of universal domination.

Clint drained the beer bottle and threw it, noting the shatter with some small satisfaction. Then he continued trying to exorcise his violated mind, torn between what he knew and what he suspected.

"No one understands..." he muttered distractedly as he turned over the thoughts in his head again and again, never entirely sure if they were his own, or if they had been planted there by some invasive power.


	6. Thor

Thor shuddered as he slammed down his empty tankard yet again. The feasting halls of Asgard usually rang with the talk and laughter of his friends and subjects, but at this dark hour he was the only living creature in the dark, quiet chamber.

He stood slowly, swaying, and walked heavily over to the half-empty cask of mead that he had been refilling his tankard from. He slopped the liquid all over the floor and down his armour, but eventually managed to refill his immense drinking glass and carry it back to his lonely table.

The god of thunder's eyes were bloodshot and underscored with deep, blue shadows, his face was blotchily red and stubbled, his usually glossy hair and beard were unkempt and tangled, and his armour was dull and unpolished, showing obvious signs of many spillages similar to the one he had just made. Thor may have been the polar opposite of Loki in every conceivable way – in looks, personality, skills, interests, and more besides – but he had still grown up alongside the adopted Jötun and refused to regard him as anything but his brother. He had railed and raged against the punishments meted out to the miscreant, and now he grieved for his fate; imprisonment without end in the Forests of Silence.

Thor was ashamed of his own feelings of loneliness when he thought of what his brother must be enduring; absolute silence, absolute aloneness, no stimulation, no distraction, and no escape for the rest of his long, cursed life. He knew that he was the only living creature who felt any sympathy at all for the fallen prince, and if he tried to bring up the subject of a pardon or even a commutement of the sentence, his father the king dismissed him from the royal presence immediately, feigning deafness until his biological son was dragged from the chamber.

Thor's mighty hand slipped and newly full tankard fell into his lap, slopping its contents all down his clothing. Unashamedly, the god began to weep in the dark feasting hall, which echoed with his uncontrolled sobs and the repeated impotent crashing of his fists into the sturdy wood benches, his rage and grief intermingling in howls that shook the very walls, "Brother! I am lost without you! I will see you returned to my side even if it is the my final act!"


	7. Loki

Loki sat silently in his forest prison, each tree identical to the next and each path leading only to madness. The Allfather had truly devised a brutal punishment for the adopted prince whose brain was his greatest weapon; an endless forest would have been a haven for his oafish brother, who could have run and climbed and chopped down trees to his heart's content, but to Loki the lack of mental stimulation and interminable boredom was slowly unhinging his sharp, predatory mind… Thor's personal hell would be a library wherein no damage could be done, Loki thought wryly.

But Loki wasn't the god of mischief for nothing, and the Allfather had seriously underestimated the extent of his powers when imprisoning him. The magical blocks so carefully put in place to inhibit Loki's sorcery were only strong enough to stop him from teleporting or forming clones of himself, not enough to entirely inhibit his powers. From thin air Loki conjured a glass full of a smoking emerald green liquid and chuckled – or he would have chuckled had he not been in the Forests of Silence – instead he performed only a strangely silent opening of his thin mouth. Even all-seeing Heimdall's gaze did not penetrate into his wooded isolation cell and here Loki could use what remained of his magics with impunity. Accordingly, he had been amusing himself with certain harmless tricks; conjuring tomes and texts to while away uncounted hours, lighting perfumed fires to dispel the irritatingly temperate air, summoning victuals to sate a belly that never hungered, and of course creating liquor to dull his sharp mind and make the monotony more bearable for short periods.

He quaffed the smoking liquid in a single throw of his regal head, the glass instantly refilling itself. With a tap of a slender finger the green liquid suddenly glowed ruby red, then with another tap it turned deep sapphire blue, then the bright orange of topaz, the marbled pale pink of rose quartz, the bright teal of aquamarine… He cycled through a hundred vivid colours, pausing to taste each one before moving on to the next, sometimes swallowing the entire vibrant contents of the glass, and sometimes taking only a sip before screwing up his aristocratic features in distaste and quickly flicking to the next gemstone liquor.

After countless glasses of drink, Loki looked contemplatively up at where the sky should be – there was no sky in his prison, no way of telling if it was night or day, just a vast, semi-lit nothingness that seemed to give the impression of both dusk and dawn simultaneously. But the clever god listened to the rhythms of his body, and right now he was feeling very tired indeed. He guessed it must be a few hours after midnight, that stretch of darkness just before dawn when nothing stirred. Nothing except a lone exile in his timeless prison, silently throwing back drink after multicoloured drink until he was forced to sit down on the hard, scrubby ground.

He leaned his back tiredly against one of the endless identical trees that stood sentinel over his incarceration and closed his eyes with a silent sigh. He thought of the worthless mortals who had so frustrated his efforts on Midgard and handed him into this endless fate; the Man of Iron who reminded him so of his hated adoptive brother, arrogantly strutting around his palace of steel and glass, thinking himself king of his inconsequential little world; the green beast that had broken him, and had turned out to be no more than a feeble man like any other; the archer who in some small way still belonged to him; his deadly mate with the hair of flame and the heart of stone – what an ally she might have proven!; and the man without time who was a product of what the Midgardians called 'science', but which Loki would just as soon have called magic. All aided and abetted of course by his traitorous brother – _adoptive_ brother! – who had gladly seen him thrown into this eternal, silent hell.

How he hated them all, surely dreaming now, each safe in their beds as they contemplated their glorious triumph over a _god_. He felt sick at the thought of their satisfaction, their _jubilation_, at his downfall, that motley band of mutants and misfits celebrating together, revelling in their camaraderie while he was left to rot alone and forgotten not only by the puny Midgardians, but by his own people – the Jötun – and even by his adoptive family on Asgard. The outcast god had failed in the face of unity and now he suffered alone for it. The thought tore him apart inside and he hardly noticed the tears sliding from under his closed eyelids and down his pale cheeks.

Even as a small child he would not have dared to cry so openly for fear of the mockery of his peers. But now as a grown man, inebriated and broken and alone, with no family, no homeland, no living creature with which to share the pain of the howling, sucking void where his heart had once been, he cried without shame. For who was there to mock his weakness now? No one.


End file.
